Paizo Declares Independence
I'm a huge, huge fan of Paizo Publishing. I'm just going to get that out up front, so we can skip the accusations of bias that will no doubt follow this post. Yes, I am biased. My fanboyism for Paizo is undisputed.
I didn't even really became aware of them as a publisher until early in 2007 when WotC pulled the licenses back in house for Dungeon and Dragon magazines. Realistically, this move should have sounded the death knell for a small game company like Paizo, but instead, they harnessed that event and used it as the catalyst to go forth and do bold (and damn smart) things. Being a person who believes that, in general that it is important to financially support things that are bold and smart - both of which are increasingly rare commodities these days - I immediately signed up as a charter member for their Pathfinder Adventures subscription, sight unseen.
Now, as I await issue #8, I will admit that Paizo has yet to disappoint. The writing, artwork and production values are all top notch, and even more importantly (at least to me), Paizo has chosen to focus on rich stories and settings, giving us whole towns full of memorable characters and brimming with roleplaying opportunities - something that WotC seems to have forgotten in their ever accelerating spiral towards combat encounters and tactical battle map-focused products built to sell booster packs of pre-painted minis. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with playing in a game where the whole point is to kill the monster and take the its loot - if that is your thing, more power to you. I am saying that it's not the game for me. These days many of my best game sessions go off without a combat encounter.
So, I was thrilled this week to hear that Paizo is cutting the cord between their products and D&D. In its place, they will be releasing their own core rulebook, logically called the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The game will be an based on the existing 3.5 OGL rule set, but they also will also be expanding and improving on those rules in many ways. I'm sure they share many of the same goals that 4th Ed. overhaul touts: Cleaning up yucky rules like grapple, making each class stand out and matter, speeding up combat, etc... In addition to these glaring issues, I'm hoping Paizo really takes a hard look at helping us to run the kind of story-based games they seem fond of writing. Please, give us some cool non-combat feats that wire our characters deeper into the game world. Give us more usable skills and some better guidelines for "social combat." Keep the combat rules fast and light so instead of counting squares and debating line of sight rules, we can run fast and cinematic combats that fit seamlessly into our bigger narrative. Nothing is worse that stopping you great story to run what basically constitutes an hour-long miniatures wargame. If I want to play really precise tactical battles, I'll play Warmachine.
Frankly, I hope this kind of thing catches on. The Iron Kingdoms RPG books are getting scarce, and from what I have been able to gather, the first printing is finally selling out, and it sounds like Privateer Press is leery to print more with the specter of 4th Ed. on the horizon. Maybe it is time from Privateer to declare their Independence Day. I'd love to see them do the same thing as Paizo - heck, I'd love to see them do it with Paizo. It would be awesome.
Either way, it's worth checking out. Paizo intends to make the design and development process very open and transparent, and available to the public to playtest and provide feedback at each stage of the game's development - again, something they chose to do very different that WotC. Just as soon as they post the second draft of the Alpha (with all of the new class rules), I intend to join in on the playtesting with my local game. If you want to take a look for yourself, Paizo has posted their first "Alpha" version of the Pathfinder RPG rules, and you can find it here (for free!).
Oh - and bonus points for not making the making the Alpha some ratty word document, but giving us a fully laid-out, high quality PDF. Only the best from Paizo.
I didn't even really became aware of them as a publisher until early in 2007 when WotC pulled the licenses back in house for Dungeon and Dragon magazines. Realistically, this move should have sounded the death knell for a small game company like Paizo, but instead, they harnessed that event and used it as the catalyst to go forth and do bold (and damn smart) things. Being a person who believes that, in general that it is important to financially support things that are bold and smart - both of which are increasingly rare commodities these days - I immediately signed up as a charter member for their Pathfinder Adventures subscription, sight unseen.
Now, as I await issue #8, I will admit that Paizo has yet to disappoint. The writing, artwork and production values are all top notch, and even more importantly (at least to me), Paizo has chosen to focus on rich stories and settings, giving us whole towns full of memorable characters and brimming with roleplaying opportunities - something that WotC seems to have forgotten in their ever accelerating spiral towards combat encounters and tactical battle map-focused products built to sell booster packs of pre-painted minis. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with playing in a game where the whole point is to kill the monster and take the its loot - if that is your thing, more power to you. I am saying that it's not the game for me. These days many of my best game sessions go off without a combat encounter.
So, I was thrilled this week to hear that Paizo is cutting the cord between their products and D&D. In its place, they will be releasing their own core rulebook, logically called the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The game will be an based on the existing 3.5 OGL rule set, but they also will also be expanding and improving on those rules in many ways. I'm sure they share many of the same goals that 4th Ed. overhaul touts: Cleaning up yucky rules like grapple, making each class stand out and matter, speeding up combat, etc... In addition to these glaring issues, I'm hoping Paizo really takes a hard look at helping us to run the kind of story-based games they seem fond of writing. Please, give us some cool non-combat feats that wire our characters deeper into the game world. Give us more usable skills and some better guidelines for "social combat." Keep the combat rules fast and light so instead of counting squares and debating line of sight rules, we can run fast and cinematic combats that fit seamlessly into our bigger narrative. Nothing is worse that stopping you great story to run what basically constitutes an hour-long miniatures wargame. If I want to play really precise tactical battles, I'll play Warmachine.Frankly, I hope this kind of thing catches on. The Iron Kingdoms RPG books are getting scarce, and from what I have been able to gather, the first printing is finally selling out, and it sounds like Privateer Press is leery to print more with the specter of 4th Ed. on the horizon. Maybe it is time from Privateer to declare their Independence Day. I'd love to see them do the same thing as Paizo - heck, I'd love to see them do it with Paizo. It would be awesome.
Either way, it's worth checking out. Paizo intends to make the design and development process very open and transparent, and available to the public to playtest and provide feedback at each stage of the game's development - again, something they chose to do very different that WotC. Just as soon as they post the second draft of the Alpha (with all of the new class rules), I intend to join in on the playtesting with my local game. If you want to take a look for yourself, Paizo has posted their first "Alpha" version of the Pathfinder RPG rules, and you can find it here (for free!).
Oh - and bonus points for not making the making the Alpha some ratty word document, but giving us a fully laid-out, high quality PDF. Only the best from Paizo.
Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, RPGs
